Is "Avid New Thinking" Smoke and Mirrors?

I have two commercial licenses of Avid XPress Pro 5.7/5.8 and I have been wrestling with the choice of selling them or upgrading them to Media Composer.

Here's my question: Is Avid really giving us XPress Pro users a deal? While Media Composer offers a few more features that many may find useful, and Continuum Complete plug-ins, which are nice, but not necessary in a lot of circumstances, is it really in our best interest financially to upgrade?

Of course, it seems as though we have no choice: Avid is cutting development for XPress Products.

So, my concern is: Avid XPress Pro has cost $495 to upgrade from one major release to another. Media Composer costs $995 to upgrade from one major release to another. Bam. In one giant swoop, Avid has doubled their revenue, losing nothing on their end in the process (except perhaps their licensing fees to Boris and others for inclusion in Media Composer Adrenaline), but we XPress Pro users are now paying double to keep up with the latest upgrades.

Also, if we upgrade our XPress Pro licenses now for $495, for a 2.7/2.8 release, what happens when Avid comes out with their 3.0 release? We will have to fork over another $995 to upgrade (most likely). Again, is this such a bargain? What if Avid decides to hold off on Leopard and Vista support for version 3.0? Then we small shops will have to fork over almost $1500 per license just to get support for the latest operating systems.

I just feel like somewhere deep in the bowels of Avid that the managers and bean counters got together and said, "Look, by merging project teams into one Media Composer team, we can save a lot of money down the line by not having to develop and support two product lines. And then there is the added benefit of, since everyone will be FORCED to upgrade to Media Composer, we will make an additional $495 in revenue on the initial upgrades, plus $995 on Media Composer upgrades in the future, verses $495 for XPress Pro upgrades! How great for us! Let's call it 'New Thinking' and market it as though we are really doing the customer a service by giving them such a low-cost entry into Media Composer, and then nail them on the back-end with higher-priced upgrades and service costs! All in favor?"

I am not a troll, and I am not looking to stir up animosity, or prompt angry comments against me. I am really concerned that this new "offering" from Avid's "new thinking" is going to end up costing small shops and single producers like myself a lot more in the long run, whether we need all the featuers in Media Composer or not...

Just wanted to posit this view and see if anyone else has thought about this... And please, no "You can always choose not to upgrade" or "You can always choose another editor like Final Cut Pro" comments. I know these things. I am just wondering where everyone else's head is at?

Re: Is "Avid New Thinking" Smoke and Mirrors?

Don't upgrade until you need to. If Xpress Pro works for you now, keep using it. If you want to wait until Media Composer 3 comes out to upgrade, wait and pay $495 per Xpress Pro license.

There's no reason to upgrade now except to immediately take advantage of the low cost to upgrade and the added benefit of Media Composer with the third party add-ons. Plus, unless you have an Adrenaline (which you don't because you're running Xpress Pro), your next Media Composer upgrade price probably won't be $995. If it's at all like the last upgrade (Media Composer 2.5 to 2.8), it will be $295. Check the online store.

Re: Is "Avid New Thinking" Smoke and Mirrors?

Yeah, I hope the $495 upgrade from XPress Pro to Media Composer is a permanent fixture. If that's the case, it probably will be wiser to wait for MC 3.

For the $995 figure, I was going based on the 2.x to 2.8 upgrade at http://store.avid.com/us/index.cfm?page=templates/product_grp_index&categoryid=51. It seems like major releases are priced at $995, and Avid hasn't said anything about lowering them, so that's my main concern.

Almost $1000 per license per major upgrade? That's kind of steep. Essentially double what I have had to pay for XPress Pro upgrades in the past...

It's going to be interesting to see if they drop the MC upgrade price to XPress Pro levels...

"There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who only consider the price are this man's lawful prey." - John Ruskin (1819-1900)

Re: Is "Avid New Thinking" Smoke and Mirrors?

I had a Miranda bridge ( not supported by Avid ) which I used as a Mojo for my XPress Pro it was cheaper and although it wasn't perfect did a few jobs I wouldn't waste an Adrenaline on.

Now as part of the upgrade I'm going to have to get an SDI Mojo because I can't see the bridge working with MC. However before I moan I haven't tested it but it does higlight extra costs incurred. It's not the end of the world for me so I'll shut up.

Re: Is "Avid New Thinking" Smoke and Mirrors?

for no other reason: Avid doesn't have the option to not play ball. sure, they have the seemingly solid foundation of the union film world and broadcast TV. however that foundation is erroding, and they haven't been paying attention.

from what i've seen, directors and producers on big movies do not care what the editor uses - they care what the editor has done. imdb has no "and the editor cuts on..." credits.

if the next wave of Hollywood editors come rolling in using final cut, Avid is toast.

Avid has limited options: get the price down and get with things like RED, cheaper HD workflow and more. for...the NLE's used to cut the features screening at sundance and cannes will be the NLE's used to cut the next generation of Hollywood films.

so even if 'evil bean counters' really exist, they also do not want to go extinct. hence - you just might be safe. =)

"There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who only consider the price are this man's lawful prey." - John Ruskin (1819-1900)

Re: Is "Avid New Thinking" Smoke and Mirrors?

I agree with your original premise. This "new thinking" worries me. Avid seems to be taking the position that shared media environments is where they should focus. That's OK. They rule there, and should continue to dominate that market for some time to come. There's lots of money to be made there.

But, they also seem to be taking the position that users of AXP, the small shops, indpendent editors, sole-proprietors, should just go with FCP. This market has been abandoned by Avid already, and the killing of AXP is further proof.

From my vantage point, a freelancer in a top ten market, most of the freelance editors are buying FCP and Aja, BMD, MOTU hardware to get into HD pronto. Avid is not even competing. Perhaps the brains at Avid think they can live without us, or that we're too bothersome or not profitable enough to deal with. But, my observation that this trend is hurting the edit shops that are heavily invested in Avid products.

I, for one, do not plan on buying this upgrade. AXP is working fine on my new MacPro on Leopard, even though it's unsupported. I don't need to upgrade for $500 to get a scant few more features. I'm not starting any new projects in AXP... only using it to revise older projects. Since it appears that FCP is my future, it's in my interest to start all projects on FCP, and to learn to be as fast, effortless and graceful on that app as I am currently on AXP.

I bought an MXO, and am doing HD editing on FCP, and pro color grading in Color, and motion graphics in AE. I don't need Avid. My clients don't care what I cut on.

If Avid had any similar offerings that allowed me to work in HD for under ten grand, I'd have been there in aheartbeat. But, they waited too long, and I have moved on, and am happily learning the workarounds in FCP, inferior as it is to AXP and MC. I can still cut a great show at a price that pleases my clients.

If Avid doesn't come up with some killer announcement around NAB time to address the small potatoes like me, that will be my last hurrah with Avid. Although I will continue to love to use my client's Avids, the days of them getting any further income from me directly will be over. I might even sell my stock.

Re: Is "Avid New Thinking" Smoke and Mirrors?

I was a strong advocate of Avid over FCP for many years. I am not at the point yet where I would say that FCP is better than Avid, but it is catching quickly. The main problems I have had with FCP are relating to media management. Clips connecting improperly, clips going offline, losing their file names etc. Much of this can be resolved by workarounds. Apple is building software to run on an OS that they build that runs on computers that they also build that only have a limited number of configurations so they don't have many drivers to worry about. It is going to be inherently more stable then Avid in most situations. (Not the new releases mind you, but the established releases, like FCP 5 running in Tiger.) FCP gives you more for less money and you can run your choice of hardware. These are all big pluses for many folks. Avid is still a more stable platform over all when you consider media management and shared workspaces, but it will only take a while before Apple tries to make a push into these environments.

I still believe in Avid as an editing software, and I think it is not too late for them. But they had better think very seriously about what their next steps are because Apple is nipping at their heels and gaining market share very quickly. And to make matters worse, Adobe is making a big push to get big movies to use Premiere Pro, so they can try and be the next FCP. (no thanks.)

Re: Is "Avid New Thinking" Smoke and Mirrors?

Not sure where you got the $495 upgrade prices unless you wait a while to
upgrade I suppose. I've only paid $50 for point release upgrades which made
sense to me so as not pay the big spread down the line.

But I must say great point of view though!

As for FCP well if NLES where coffee FCP would be a Flat white Premiere
would be a Long black and Avid well you decide...

Re: Is "Avid New Thinking" Smoke and Mirrors?

Well, the boys at the Adobe HQ here seem to think they are going to have quite the showing at NAB. We shall see.

JVR the $495 upgrade price refers to the fact that Avid Xpress Pro is no longer being upgraded and if you want future support you need to upgrade to Media Composer for $495. Afther that it could be expected that upgrades will be either $199 or $295.

I know Premiere has some good points, and I'm sure they'll refine it further. I haven't used any of the more recent versions, but I got quite the distaste for it early on. I'm not a lover of FCP either, don't get me wrong. I've had 2 MAJOR problems with FCP in the past that deal with Media Management: Using Ripple Delete (like Extract in Avid) I had it cut the clip and shorten the timeline only to have some clips downstream move and some not. I hadn't realized it was doing this for a while and so I had to roll my project back to the previous day losing all the work I had done that day. Even worse was one time when one of our firewire drives failed with media on it and FCP crapped the bed. It lost all the links to all the media in my sequence. When I say links I mean it didn't remember tape numbers or source or anything. When I went to reconnect media it said "" is offline would you like to reconnect. Well, that doesn't get you very far when you hundreds of clips in your sequence. I had to have an intern go clip by clip in my sequence and reconnect each clip manually. Good Times!

Point is that they all have their issues, but IF Apple gets their stuff together and can put together a solid editor on a solid platform it could spell trouble for Avid.

I would like to commend Avid if they truly are trying to rethink themselves.